


here I am, alive at last (the taste of ink)

by rage_for_love



Series: Soulmate!Verse [1]
Category: Mindless Self Indulgence, My Chemical Romance
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magical Realism, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Artist!Gerard - Freeform, Artist!Lynz, Body Image, Canon Compliant, F/M, Fluff and Angst, I tried to make it factually accurate, Projekt Revolution, September 11 Attacks, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Time Skips, but some things I couldn't find timelines/info for, so I decided to wing it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-26
Updated: 2017-09-26
Packaged: 2019-01-04 23:28:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,392
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12178584
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rage_for_love/pseuds/rage_for_love
Summary: Lindsey knows who her soulmate is; the drawings and confessions of a boy named Gerard have appeared on her skin for years. Now, she just has to find him.





	here I am, alive at last (the taste of ink)

**Author's Note:**

> So this is an idea I've had forever, and I finally got around to writing it! 
> 
> Title from "The Taste of Ink" by The Used.
> 
> Warnings: Depression, 9/11, substance abuse, alluded to eating disorders and body image issues

**June 1989**

  
It first happens the summer that she turns thirteen. Despite her expectations for an overnight transformation from kid to almost- adult, nothing much really seems to have changed. Summer is still made of pitchers of freshly squeezed lemonade and trying to perfect her backbend in the yard and wishing she had a friend to assure her that she didn't look like a whale in her bathing suit, even when all the other kids walked past her house and laughed at the sight of her in her yellow two piece, eating a popsicle in one of her mother's folding lawn chairs.

  
Though Lindsey doesn't like being ignored at all, she likes being laughed at even less. It makes it seem like she's just an animal at the zoo. It feels like her only purpose is to be a spectacle, the girl that makes everyone else feel better just because they aren't her.

   
Being different doesn't make Lindsey special; it makes her a pariah. And the worst part about being a pariah is that there isn't anyone to share the sentiment with.

  
But then, something heard her wish for change. One night during that summer, she went to sleep feeling as ordinary as ever. The next morning, she woke up with someone else's mark on her arm.

  
For a while, she panicked. It wasn't really much; a small sketch of a goofy looking monster, just below her right shoulder. It could easily be covered by a shirtsleeve, or, worse case scenario, some of her mother's foundation. What freaks her out, though, is the huge question that accompanies it, that being: how the hell did it get there?

  
She knows she didn't do it herself, and, as much as her sister hates her, she doubts she'd bother to come into her bedroom and draw on her in her sleep. It's when she tries to scrub the ink off that things become clear, albeit in the most surreal way.

  
The drawing wasn't drawn on her skin, but created somewhere else, a shadow of it forming on her arm, an apparition.

  
She knows this for sure when she wakes up the next day to find her skin blank again. That's when she realizes that something special can happen to someone like her after all.

 

**September 1989**

  
His name is Gerard, and she's positive that he's real. The new drawings and words that appear on her skin make her feel as if she knows him, each one seeming to be more personal than the last. She learns his name and that he's a year younger than her, and that he loves to draw monstrous creatures and superheroes, a new one of those seeming to pop up every day.

  
Because of him, Lindsey goes back to school wearing long sleeves and a smile. People whisper, asking why the freak looks so happy. For once, she doesn't care, holding her head up high as she walks past them. Gerard is her own little secret, someone that she can rely on to make her feel better after a long day, even if he doesn't know it.

  
She hasn't felt this happy in a long time.

 

**May 1992**

  
The year Lindsey turns sixteen, things change. Most days, she feels as if she's running in an endless, pitch-black tunnel. She can see the light at the end, taunting her with its brightness. She just can't seem to reach it.

  
She blames some of it on growing up. She's far from the girl she was three years ago. Her smile fades and the number on the scale drops, and no one seems to notice, laughing at her or shrugging it off. The icy loneliness she feels makes her grow bitter, the love and longing she once felt turning into a sense of hatred that sometimes makes her feel guilty. She doesn't allow that for long, though; she substitutes an apple for a meal and shoplifts makeup from the pharmacy and spends the rest of her time in the local library, pretending to do something productive.

  
Thankfully, she finds something resembling a friend in a pen pal. She writes letters back and forth with an older girl who attends art school in New York, detailing her teenage mishaps to someone who doesn't know her well enough to judge her. Lindsey tells her about stealing and boys and girls and how food isn't good to her anymore. In return, she tells Lindsey about student loans and working in fast food and what she cries about in bed at night, and, most of all, how art is an excellent way to make the thoughts that feel so wrong almost look right, channeling the unsettled blood in your veins into ink. Lindsey thanks her and tells her that she might try it.

  
When she can't sleep at night, Lindsey thinks about that. She decides that's why Gerard still does it. When she looks at her arms now, she aches for him as well. She thinks he's hurting, too. In fact, she knows it, snippets of his late night journal entries bleeding into her own emptiness.

  
Every night, she hopes that he'll still be around to draw for her the next day. Each morning, she's a bit happier when he is.

 

**October 1994**

  
After pouring her heart out in ink for a few years, she makes it out of high school alive and ends up at a liberal arts college. She wants to thank her pen pal for that, but she changed addresses a long time ago. Lindsey believes that she's alive and well.

  
Speaking of alive and well, Gerard is just that, still writing and drawing, his work so beautifully crafted that Lindsey doubts her own work. He writes about going to art school as well, after he finishes his senior year. Part of her hopes that he might end up here, so that they might cross paths. Another part hopes he goes somewhere else, remains faceless forever so that there's not chance of it being ruined.

  
Her newfound freedom makes her feel at peace. She spends the time she's not creating new pieces exploring the campus, namely the university library, which has tons of weird, taboo books available to the school's equally weird and taboo students. She particularly likes the titles that explore the idea that magic exists, creating fantastical answers for unexplainable events.

  
The only bad experience she has in the library is when she picks up a book on soulmates, only to read something about identifying marks on the body being created by your soulmate themselves. When she reads that, she goes as white as a ghost and throws up in the librarian's wastebasket.

 

**November 1997**

  
The people who spoke so kindly about high school were all wrong: the college years are the best time of Lindsey's life. She hasn't even finished school yet, and she's already selling her work, receiving endless compliments on how her work is simultaneously beautiful and unsettling.

  
Gerard did, indeed, end up at an art school, just not hers. After her discovery with the soulmate book, she's a bit relieved. Though she's doing okay now, she wants to meet him when she's at her very best. When and if that day will come, she doesn't know.

  
In the meantime, she enjoys the mix of work and play that has become her life. She sculpts and paints and glues things together between the laughing and drinking and attempting to learn to play bass for a punk Dolly Parton cover band she and her friends dreamed up.

  
She looks at Gerard's newest drawings in the dead of night, when he's up and working an indiscernible number of miles away. Though she's never seen his face or heard his voice, she knows that she loves him at least a little bit. It's apparent when she looks at the heroes and villains he creates and reads his accounts of dressing in drag for a whole day and getting hit on by bus drivers, as well as the days when he confesses that he doesn't feel good enough and she feels the strange urge to hold him.

  
Maybe 'soulmate' isn't too far off.

 

 **June 2001**  

 It's not her first art show, but it might be the biggest. In her four years of doing this, there have never been this many people there, commending her and shaking her hand whilst admiring her work. It's exciting and oh-so-interesting. A vast array of people show up, each new person different from the last. Lindsey attracts weirdos, and she's proud of that.

  
Perhaps the most interesting, however, is a man with the most misshapen mohawk she's ever seen, donning a suit with a bright purple tie. Instead of shaking her hand, he flags Lindsey down and hands her a CD.

 

 

 "This is my band," he says in the most matter-of-fact manner possible. "We're looking for a bassist. We were wondering if you might have some friends who would be interested."

  
Since this man just might be the weirdest weirdo she's come in contact with thus far, she opens her mouth and fashions a lie. "I play the bass, actually."

  
The man grins. "Great. Auditions are in two weeks." He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a piece of paper. "There's my number. If you call, ask for Little Jimmy Urine."

  
She listens to the CD when she returns to her apartment and decides on the third listen that it's the most wonderfully annoying thing she's ever heard, and that she'll definitely have to audition.

  
She calls one of her old Beg Yer Parton bandmates, and the two of them cram basslines for two weeks. By the time auditions roll around, she still pretty much sucks, but a box of matches and a bottle of Bacardi fix that in no time. As it would turn out, a bassist who blows fire around the room  and nearly sets the lead singer's hair on fire is the perfect fit for a band with a flair for chaos. With the help of the guitarist, Steve, she's in, getting pulled into a world that consists of talk of new albums and tours. When she's jumping around in a schoolgirl outfit with a thirteen pound bass guitar, it's almost easy to forget about the visual art career she may be kissing goodbye, as well as her stranger of a soulmate.

  
That is, until she wakes up to see that Gerard's pitch to Cartoon Network most definitely calls for a long sleeve day. Even if she is in a band that has a song called "Bitches," she isn't going to proudly walk around with the words 'Breakfast Monkey' written on her arm.

 

**September 2001**

  
Smoke seems to turn the whole world black. The television shows bodies falling from burning buildings, lifeless and otherwise. Lindsey closes her eyes, feeling sick.

  
In the midst of the bedlam, she ended up driving to Jimmy's apartment. Kitty and Steve were already there, watching the footage in complete silence. She had never seen any of them look so serious, the room clouded by tragedy.

  
She lays next to Steve on the couch, squeezing her eyes shut to avoid bursting into tears. She knows that Gerard was supposed to be going back to CN headquarters today as he always did, even after his own cartoon was rejected. With his workplace so close to where the World Trade Center was going down, he might have been caught up in the middle of it, burning as well.

  
What if he died? Then what?

  
She squeezes her blank arm, trying to wish away the thought, hoping with every bit of her that she'd find something, anything on her body to let her know that he was okay.

  
The next day, her wish came true with the surfacing of five words: _you're not in this alone._

 

**August 2003**

  
As guilty as you may feel for doing it, it's hard not to look at other people, even when you know who your soulmate is. Many a time has Lindsey flirted with guys and girls alike, buying them drinks or simply admiring their features. This time is no different.

  
MSI's opening act has almost as much energy as the main band themselves. The two guitarists thrash in time with each other, the shorter one occasionally throwing himself to the floor as the guy with the wild hair shreds. The bassist's legs seem to be a mile apart as he focuses on playing, occasionally shaking his dark blonde bangs away from his eyes. The most striking out of all of them, however, is the lead singer, who Lindsey is subtly ogling from backstage.

  
He jumps around almost as much as she does, his sweat-soaked leather jacket hanging loosely over his shoulders as he screams his heart out, pointing at the audience in hopes that they may sing along.

  
Unfortunately, none of them do. Though his stage presence doesn't seem to be hindered by this, Lindsey makes a mental note to hit him up after the show with some sort of consolation prize.

  
The rest of the band doesn't seem to be impressed. Jimmy points at the singer. "That guy looks like a panda," he says.

  
Lindsey elbows him in the side. "Shut up."

  
"He kinda does," Kitty chimes in.

  
Jimmy nods at her, looking pleased. "Right? It's the makeup, you know, the rings around the eyes."

  
"Or maybe how his face is shaped," Steve says.

  
Lindsey groans. "Oh my god."

 

 

 

                                                    - - - - - -

  
Despite the others' teasing, she does, in fact, buy him a drink after the show, though he seems to be hammered already. He takes it with great alacrity.

"Thanks," he says, his voice either affected by an extremely thick accent or a terrible slur. Maybe both.

  
Lindsey smiles. "You're very welcome." She seats herself next to him on the ratty couch, sat on by countless artists before and after shows over the years. "So," she starts, sipping her own beer, "where are you guys from?"

  
"Jersey," he replies. "Ever heard of Belleville?"

  
Lindsey shakes her head, though it sounds vaguely familiar, almost unsettlingly so.

  
"Well," he says, "that's where we're from. It was just about the only place I had ever been, before we started touring. 'Cept for parts of New York." He takes a long sip of his drink, closing his eyes. "How 'bout you?"

  
"Well, I was born in Scotland, but I grew up in Connecticut," she says. "I moved to New York to go to college at Pratt."

  
"Pratt, huh?" He looks her up and down. "Lemme guess. Art student?"

  
She laughs. "How did you know?"

  
"I went to art school. I know an artist when I see one."

  
Thoughts of the drawing Gerard had done this morning enter her mind. _Well,_ she thinks. _It appears I have a type._

  
"You're an artist?" she asks, wanting to slap herself across the face afterwards. Of course he is, if he went to art school.

  
"Yup." He smiles, slightly glassy hazel eyes meeting her own. "I could show you some of my work sometimes, if you want."

  
Lindsey can feel her face flushing. Why did that sound so much like a pick up line?  
"I'd, um... I'd like that a lot," she stammers.

"Great." He smirks, looking immensely proud of himself. "I don't think I caught your name. Up until now, you've just been Mindless Self Indulgence's sexy-as-hell new bassist."

  
She almost chokes, trying desperately not to think of ways she might be able to sneak him into her bunk without the others noticing. "It's Lindsey."

"Well, it's lovely to meet you, Lindsey," he says. "I'm Gerard."

  
In that moment, she feels as if the whole world just collapsed on top of her. She jumps to her feet, trying her best not to pass out.

  
Gerard attempts to stand up with her, hobbling a bit from the amount of alcohol he must have consumed. Just when she thinks it can't get any worse, his hand brushes hers. "You alright?"

  
"Fine," she chokes out. "I've, ah, gotta go to the bathroom."

  
"Okay, then." He flops back down against the couch. "See you later?"

  
"Yeah," she says, hoping she means it. "Catch you later, Gerard."  
                                                - - - - - - - -

 She's already pretending to be asleep in her bunk when the others stumble onto the bus a few hours later, all of them too sloppy drunk to bother to look for her.

  
For the last couple of hours, she's been mulling over the previous events, her mind spinning. It's hard for her to believe that she just met the man she had officially been destined to be with for fourteen years, but it seems a lot more unlikely that this was all some insane coincidence. She holds her pillow close to her, waiting for something unknown, knowing she probably won't sleep tonight.

  
She knows for sure, however, when new words appear on her skin half an hour later.

  
_Mindless Self Indulgence and My Chemical Romance_

  
_August 9, 2003_

 

 

**May 2007**

 

 

  
For the past four years, Lindsey has religiously poured over Kerrang! and Alternative Press Magazine. Not in hopes of seeing her own band (though, recently, that had been happening more often.) No, she was reading them because there was 99.9% chance she'd see a piece on My Chemical Romance in each one that she opened.

  
Jimmy was bitter that those 'emo kids from New Jersey' that had once opened for them had ended up being more successful than his own band, but Lindsey didn't mind. They deserved it.

Whatever the case, she wasn't about to let Jimmy see the fact that she literally had their lyrics written on her body, voluntarily or not. That would probably result in her getting kicked out of the band.

She had seen some of Gerard's ups-and-downs in his own written and drawn depictions, but that didn't stop her from reading about them, as well. She was pretty lucky to know that he was still around; he had talked about depression and addiction and loss, many of the stories she read helping her piece together the meanings of the things he drew and wrote that worried her to death. He had had two failed engagements, (which she was sort of relieved about, in a sick way,) lost his grandmother, and gotten himself clean of his alcohol and drug abuse problems in seventeen days.

  
Reading the articles and listening to the music broke her heart a bit, sending a strange guilty pang through her chest. She had let him go that night a few years ago; had she been brave enough, she could have just pulled up her sleeve and shown him his own sketches, being there for him from that day forward.

  
But she didn't, and that could have screwed her over forever.

  
She was trying to push that guilt out of her mind as she read yet another article on the success of The Black Parade when Jimmy burst into their hotel room, wrapping all three of his bandmates in a hug whilst laughing hysterically.

  
Used to these sort of shenanigans by now, she drops her magazine with a sigh. "Jimmy," she asks. "What the hell is going on?"

  
"We're doing Pro Rev!"

  
Within a matter of seconds, the four of them burst into a collective fit of cheers and 'hell yeah's.

  
That was when she allowed herself to get excited as well. Of the few big name rockstars that had a soft spot for Mindless Self Indulgence, Chester Bennington was one of them. Doing the Projekt Revolution tour was the highlight of their career as a band, not to mention that they were all ridiculously fond of the Linkin Park guys. Of course Jimmy was freaking out.

  
"That's great!" Kitty yells.

  
"Do you know who else is on the tour this year?" Lindsey asks.

  
"Um... Linkin Park, of course, Placebo, Taking Back Sunday, I think, and..." Jimmy's face looks as if he swallowed a lemon whole as he sighs before revealing the last part. "...My Chemical Romance."

  
Lindsey smiles, trying to hide the fact that her heart was threatening to beat out of her chest. "Sounds great," she says.

  
This time she was going to be brave. After eighteen years, Lindsey Ballato was going to meet her soulmate.

**July 2007**

  
She doesn't expect him to immediately hug her. And yet, that's exactly what Gerard does when he first sees Lindsey, wrapping a surprisingly strong set of arms around Lindsey's waist and pulling her close to him. The intimacy of it makes it seem like they've known each other all their lives. In a way, she guesses they have.

  
He's changed a lot over the past few years. For one thing, he's lost a good bit of weight, trading the ratty leather jacket he once wore for form-fitting denim that he looks really, really good in. The closely cut white hair he had in The Black Parade press photos has grown out to be long and shaggy, loose strands of dark hair hanging over his jade-colored eyes as he pulls back to look at her. Thankfully, his smile is just as endearingly crooked.

  
"I've been thinking about you," he says quietly.

  
Lindsey laughs. "Really? I'm surprised you even remember me."

  
"How could I not?" he asks. "You're Mindless Self Indulgence's sexy-as-hell bassist. Pretty unforgettable."

  
She blushes. "You were drunk off your ass that night."

  
"But I meant every word of what I said."

  
"Lindsey!" Steve calls before she can reply. "We gotta go check in to the hotel!"

  
She turns back to Gerard, smiling apologetically. "Sorry. Catch you later?"

  
"I hope so."

She smiles sweetly and waves, slinging her bag over her shoulder and following her bandmates. "Me, too," she mumbles when she's well out of his sight.  
                                             - - - - - - - - -

She does catch him after the first show. He comes offstage, soaked in sweat and proud of himself. The crowd did sing along with him this time, an endless number of people looking at him as if he were a god as he commanded the crowd.  
Lindsey was just as in awe of him as the crowd was. She felt a swell of pride seeing him perform, though she knew that she didn't have any impact on who he turned out to be. He sure did have an impact on her, though, though he didn't know it.

  
"Hey, moon eyes," Kitty said, walking up next to Lindsey, drum sticks in hand.  
Lindsey jumped in surprise. "God, Jen, you scared me."

  
Kitty smiled. "I can tell. You looked pretty distracted." She paused to watch the band as well, tapping her toe to the sound of the music. Once the song was almost over, she turned back to the bassist, grinning. "You really like him, don't you?"

  
Lindsey sighed, figuring there was no good in denying it. "Yeah. I do. I think I've got it pretty bad for him."

  
Kitty put her arm around her shoulder. "I know you do." They watched in silence as the band finished off "House of Wolves."

  
"He's pretty, I'll admit," Kitty said.

  
"Very," Lindsey replied.

  
A few songs later, their set was up, the band coming off stage together.

  
Now, Gerard smiles when he sees Lindsey. "My dreams have come true," he says.

  
Lindsey smiles. "As have mine."

  
Kitty and Mikey share a glance. Lindsey's pretty sure they're both rolling their eyes.

  
Gerard looks back toward the stage. "So are you guys about to go on?"

  
"Yeah," Lindsey replies. "Jen and I are just waiting for the guys."

  
"In that case, I guess I have the time to give you a little something for good luck."

  
 Before she can figure out what's happening, Gerard leans over and plants a kiss against her cheek, his hair tickling the side of her face. He pulls away as quickly as he came in, smiling the biggest, most endearing crooked-mouthed grin she's ever laid eyes on. "How's that for morale?"

  
She laughs and swats at his arm. "Meet me after the show, Way, and I'll return the favor."

 

 

 

                                             - - - - - -- - -

  
After their set, she does as promised, finding Gerard backstage.

  
"You aren't partying back here, I hope," she says.

"Not at all," he replies. "And with you here, I don't need to."

  
She takes a seat as close to him as she can. "You're quite the sweet talker, aren't you?" she asks, her leg brushing his as she leans closer. "I think your way with words deserves reward."

  
Their faces are inches are apart now, and she's waiting to see which one of them will take initiative first. Apparently, Gerard's wondering the same thing, his eyes moving from her lips to her eyes. "Can I?" he asks.

  
She answers by tenderly pressing her lips against his. It's slow and sweet, careful, and they catch up with each other quickly. His hand is on the back of her neck and hers is in his hair, and Lindsey knows now more than ever that soulmates are real, and she has hers, right here, right now.

  
When they come up for air, they sit in silence for a while, his head resting against her shoulder. "Will there be more where that came from?" he asks.

  
She kisses his forehead. "We'll see."

 

**August 2007**

  
Over the next few weeks, it becomes Gerard and Lindsey, a package deal. With each city they reach, they become closer, hanging out with each other's bands when they weren't kissing in dark corners.

  
It's when they reach Hartford, however, that things really change.

  
They go to a shabby little 24-hour cafe after the show, stopping be the hotel to freshen up first, because, well, they could do that. So Lindsey washes off her makeup and strips herself of her stage clothes and ends up in her travel clothes, leaving the hotel with wet hair and no makeup. When Gerard tells her that she looks beautiful, her heart swells.

  
They get a booth by the window and people watch, both of them ordering coffee despite the fact that they should probably be going to sleep soon. They sip their drinks and talk about their lives thus far.

  
Lindsey tells him about growing up in a town not too far away from where they were now, sometimes coming to Hartford on day trips. Gerard tells her about being raised in the basement of a house in a run-down New Jersey town where just about everyone had some nefarious connections.

  
Lindsey confesses to him that she and her family never speak anymore, to the point that she wonders if they ever think about her at all. Gerard tells her that his family is what has kept him going for this long, and that, perhaps some day soon, he'd like to have one of his own.

  
Lindsey tells him about her band, and how she loves what they do more than anything in the world. Gerard says the same thing about his, and how he feels that the best is yet to come for both of them.

  
They sit there until the coffee pot is empty, sharing their souls with one another and laughing until their stomachs hurt, drawing tiny animals and cartoon characters for each other on a napkin. When they leave, he hands her the napkin and loops his arm around her waist. They hail a cab and head back to the hotel, glad that the taxi driver either doesn't recognize them or doesn't care.  
She's more than disappointed when they stop outside of the hotel, having to say goodbye and go back to business as usual tomorrow, back on the road in their respective buses. They stand awkwardly in the second floor's hallway, Gerard's cheeks tinted pink as he scratches the back of his neck, trying to figure out the best way to tell her goodnight.

  
"So, um, I guess we should be going to bed now," he says.

  
"But I'm not tired," she whines teasingly.

  
"Well, I'm not really tired, either." His eyes light up as he looks toward the elevator. "Hey, maybe we could go to my room for a bit..."

  
She laughs. "Is that what you tell every girl you meet?"

  
By now, his blush has spread all the way across his face. Quite frankly, it's the cutest thing Lindsey has ever seen. "Well, not really," he says. "But I guess you're pretty special."

  
That's when Lindsey pulls him to her by his jacket, her lips slamming against his. With that, she throws in the towel on how far they'll go. Finally, she lives up to her wanting to pull him with her to her bunk all those years ago. Only she's pulling him into his hotel room instead, and they had both showered in the past twenty four hours.  She was pretty sure it was a lot better this way.

  
They were still kissing when she pushed him down into the king sized bed, wrinkling the sheets the maid seemed to have just straightened up. When they have to come up for air, she simply moves her kisses from his mouth to his jaw, then to his neck, shoving the collar of that denim jacket aside. She ends up biting him in a fit of boldness, causing him to gasp in surprise. She resists the urge to laugh as she pulls away, catching a glimpse of the red spot standing out against his porcelain skin.

  
_How's that for a soulmate-identifying mark?_

  
She presses a gentle kiss to the mark, smiling. "Wear a scarf tomorrow," she says. "Or a turtleneck, in the off chance you have one and can pull it off."

  
He laughs, voice ragged. "And I thought hugging Brian Molko was the best thing to happen to me on this tour."

  
The moments continue to pass by in a blur of kisses and sweet nothings until the moment he begins to pull at her blue vest, only to find the small woodland creatures from the napkin copied onto her shoulder. He pauses, causing her to stiffen.

  
He simply smiles at her serious expression, pressing another kiss to her lips. "I knew it."

                                               - - - - - - - -  
Lindsey always thought the term 'lovemaking' was stupid as hell. It was just a euphemism to make things not sound so dirty, a sugary coating.

  
However, when she's half asleep in the arms of her soulmate, she doesn't think it's quite as stupid as she did before. In fact, if she hadn't been sure that they had that love before, she might have thought it was accurate.

  
So she says it out loud, because it's not like it's a secret. "I love you," she says, eyes-half closed.

  
"I love you, too," he replies, just loud enough for her to hear.

  
She sighs, burying her face into his chest. "We could get married."

  
She doesn't expect him to reply to that as easily. Somehow, he does. "At the end of the tour?"

  
She laughs. "If you wanted to."

  
"Hell yeah," he says. His hand finds hers, and he smiles as their fingers intertwine. "Let's do it."

  
"Okay then." She stops to yawn. "But can we at least wait until we get to Syracuse? I'm beat."

  
"Of course." He kisses her temple and pulls her closer. "Anything for you."

  
Needless to say, Lindsey doesn't go back to her own room that night. And when Mikey finds them the next morning, he doesn't say anything about the fact that his brother has one of his favorite bands' bassist in his bed.

  
As always, Mikey already knew.

 

**September 2007**

  
They end up waiting until the very end, finally saying their vows backstage in Englewood. It's a bit of a mess, handled by a sound guy who just so happened to be an ordained minister, (how lucky were they?) but they've never seen such a happy mess as when they kiss and their bandmates erupt into cheers.

  
For the last time, they fall asleep together in a hotel bed, Gerard promising Lindsey that they'll go to Zales to get real rings first thing in the morning, just before they head back home, -- their home, together, -- in California.

  
Sure, it was one hell of a risk, but it was worth taking. Neither of them could question that it was meant to be.

  
Especially not when he wrote 'run away with me?' on the hotel notepad, only for her response to surface on his own skin.

 

_Anytime you want._

 

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed! Kudos and comments are encouraged!


End file.
